It's easy for any woman to reduce her risk of breast cancer. All she has to do is never gain weight, not that I'm implying that it's ever easy to keep weight down.
What evidence do we have that carrying extra weight also carries a heavy breast-health price? To start, several studies have indicated that a woman's risk of breast cancer is related to her weight, especially - and I'm afraid this is going to depress many middle-aged and older women - to what her weight was at age 30! Other studies have shown that the greatest benefit that exercise provides in lowering the risk of breast cancer comes from vigorous exercise that is done during the teenage and early adult years. And to add more weight to this argument, a study published in the journal Cancer concluded that should she be unlucky enough to ever get breast cancer, a woman's odds of beating her cancer are also linked to how much she weighed - you guessed it, alas! - at age 30.
Why is age 30 key? Because, the researchers say, although all weight gain is bad for your breasts when it's deposited in an "android" fashion, that is, the way men put on weight (around the middle), rather than a "gynoid" fashion, that is, where women tend to lament extra pounds (around the hips, thighs, and buttocks), for some reason - perhaps because of its hormonal effect on more active, younger breast tissue, and because it's nearly always deposited in an android fashion - weight gained during the early adult years and especially during the third decade seems to be the worst. By the way, for the number-challenged, I must tell you that the third decade is the one between ages 20 and 30.
So for those many women who gained too many android pounds in their earlier years and in midlife now resemble John Goodman a bit too much, the need is clear: to balance life's scales, start doing more exercise because exercise is particularly effective at taking off middle-aged middle-body pounds, which is not only good for your breasts, it's also good for your heart, your brain, and all parts under, over, and in between.
And while you're at it, ladies, why not get your husbands to work out, too? After all, a quick look around will quickly reveal that they probably need it even more than you do.